Cybermats 101
Cybermat combat systems were initiated experiments during the initial conversion of Mondas, whose inhabitants did not all go quietly.
Mondasian insect pupae were injected with cyber micro-systems that developed as the insect progressed through its larval and final insectoid stage. Initial tests on scorpions and similar arachnae specimens proved successful. Later experiments specialized in air-borne and space-borne insects. The final cyboid was could then be controlled for purposed of infiltration, information and, when fitted with the correct nanites, could infect and convert the local populations. Aquatic cyboids were similarly injected to patrol the Mondasian oceans.
Later designs were more specialized for different campaigns: some no longer utilized a biological host and were purely mechanical, often resembling silverfish or much larger, snake-like entities, to increase mobility and remain undetected from bio sensors while infesting enemy bio-craft and installations.
In the final stages of one of the later time wars, the cybermats, these resembling fluid shifting worms, were able to tap into extra-dimensional pockets of subspace to house their quantum flight engines and staged time active, devastating attacks, riddling entire planets to rubble.
Several other experiments remained scattered throughout time and space, some failed, some abandoned, others intentionally left behind by various now-extinct races of the cyberhorde...
The cybermat now extruding its tentacles into Susan's pons, medulla, and cerebellum had originally been injected into the DNA of a Agriolimacidae Deroceras indigenous to a small, third moon of a gas giant in the Vinda-K system, several millennia earlier. It had harnessed the magnesium-aluminum rich nutrient mix present in the crystalline fluid, like the other thousand creatures that recently swarmed the moonbase. Susan's proximity, and that of the other older humanoid, had triggered a different response other than outright conversion/kill instinct that dominated the cybermat instinctual subroutines:
Infiltrate.
It began to download the information in the Susan system and broadcast it on a special frequency, reserved to reach whatever cyberhorde existed in this reality.
Its tendrils sparked and sizzled the pink-gray flesh as it devoured the flashes that flashed from dendrite to dendrite.
It hummed, apparently quite happily, away as it burrowed further into Susan's brain, its reserves systems powering up to fry the organisms brain pan when the down load was complete.
XXX
Everything was white.
It made everything so much easier.
Her name, before it had been Susan, was lost to her. Her childhood was nothing more than an angry smear now, red, purple bruises that tasted of bitterness and loss.
It didn't matter now.
History was unraveling, weeping through the seams. Not entirely torn asunder, not yet. Probabilities and infinities were unwinding, resolving.
There was still enough time, in this frozen moment that stretched before her, to end this distraction permanently, to continue with the rest of the mission.
Why she should pursue the mission, why she should continue to carry out orders, was beyond her at this point: she was a broken, half-reconstituted psyche, occupying a dying host, even if it was a future incarnation. Certainties were there to hold on to… there was little else. Survival was all that mattered.
There was her prey, she could see Susan: a vaporous trail, a dashing, ghostly streak- draining as it sped away. They were both draining away. The moment was being sucked away from both of them. There was no time.
She changed the landscape in a moment, made a sky of blue, an earth of brown and black. Susan stood out against the background immediately: a terrified ball of bright white, skimming across the surface.
She took flight, diving towards Susan, forming talons and massive wings as she dove, a falcon diving down towards the tiny, white wisp.
Susan, startled, flitted across the terrain, managing to grow hasty, quick, tiny wings of her own, flying just above the ground, lashing from left to right, trying to evade the massive creature that bore down on her.
She struck at Susan, her first blow glanced through the half-formed wing, causing her to wheel to the left, to stagger through the skies, to fall into a canyon. She swooped down after her, but the injury caused Susan's slight form to twitch and veer in unexpected patterns. She wheeled, rounding to dive again, soaring through the imaginary air, taking in the sky that reached above and beyond her: it too was smeared, dripping, dripping with numbers and images, memories and scents, fears and dreams- leaking, draining away.
There she was- herself, not Susan, but as a woman, tall, confident, glancing at her reflection as she strode through the Capitol. There she was again, a fugitive, staring at her image in a murky and muddled puddle.
From out of the sky, like a drop of rain, a memory struck her, splashing across her brown wings and gaunt head.
Putyaskiatrelawnduthuna.
Putya had been her name. Once. One of them.
She had been Putya.
The knowledge thrilled her, filled her, drove her, and she wheeled once more in the sky, invigorated… she needed to survive, to become Putya again.
Down towards Susan she dove once more.
XXX
The escape capsule, riding the bow wave of the explosion, drifted down towards Earth, quietly skimming the stratosphere in blazing, fiery skips and hops.
Around it, debris and meteorites burnt and streaked across the skies of Earth.
The Tardis, rebounding like elastic, snapped downwards towards the ground once more, twitching away from the central explosion, its plasmic shell writhing in agony.
Around it, shuddering and shifting in ways visible only to it, history and infinity writhed and flinched, distorted, merging…
Changing.
XXX
Putya angled and swooped, snapping at Susan's tail feathers as she slipped in and out of the slot canyons, nimbly darting down into the impossibly sculpted landscape, riding hidden currents that gusted and whispered through the narrow passageways while Putya soared from above, worriedly.
She hadn't created those canyons, the slim and deep passages. Susan was learning, adapting the landscape.
There wasn't time for this.
Around them both, above and below, the mirage was fading, shifting, the colors diluted, as someone were immersing the image in silty, settling water, washing their existence away.
There wasn't time for any of this.
With a concentrated effort, Putya blasted the ground out of existence, swatting Susan's frail form onto a mesa, the only surface left, and talons flexed, she pounced.
XXX
As the ground rushed up to meet Barbara, she heard a familiar sound: the Tardis door opening- and then she was sliding, still sliding, but slowing as the console flashed past and the control room wall grabbed her, held her gently, held Ian too in its cushioned embrace.
Sliding into the Tardis, she'd been holding onto Ian tightly, desperately; now that they were inside the Ship again, though, her arms dropped away, as if forgetting why she'd held him. The emotions for him that had swamped her just seconds before fell to the floor between them, forgotten too.
If she were aware of it, she'd have noticed the same thing happening to Ian too.
Disbelieving, they help each other to their feet and stared around the empty room: it was a mess. Furniture, clothes and equipment were scattered and smashed. The normally pure, white walls glowed an unhealthy orange and brown.
Noticing that the doors were still open, and that some semblance of normality appeared to have been restored, they moved to the door and stepped outside.
Together, they marveled in awe and horror at the world that greeted them.
XXX
Putya had Susan pinned to the ground, both claws embedded deeply into Susan's slight wings.
Around them, the world began to dissolve as the cybermat's impulses continued to obliterate and drain their collective mind.
"Be still," she said, her voice quiet, controlled. "It's almost time. It will all be over."
"We'll both be dead." Susan's tiny eyes were wide with panic.
"Death," Putya answered, "is a lot like Life… it's different for everyone."
XXX
Above Ian and Barbara, the sky was a chaotic mess.
The moon was gone.
The thought lodged in Ian's head, too massive, too stunning, to sink in. Like the death of a family member, it was beyond comprehension.
It was shock. It was grief.
The growing morning light and the fading darkness were phantoms, overwhelmed by the rain of fire and the thick streak that stretched from horizon to horizon, from east to west.
"Rings!" A familiar voice grunted. "Rings… Earth's rings… well then. Well then. Unexpected… impossible of course. But still, unexpected." The Doctor was walking towards them across the muddied grounds; in the background behind him the crystal palace was a twisted shattered ruin. Ian turned to look at the Tardis… it looked like a candle that had been set in the sun: the fine lines and sharp corners of the police box were soft and molten, still shifting back into shape. The Doctor came to stand by them, running a hand over his wounded ship, before staring with them back up at the sky once more.
"I don't believe it…" Ian shook his head.
"No… I'm not sure I do either."
"Doctor…" Ian began gingerly. "What about… what happened… where's Susan?"
The Doctor was silent. The silence dragged on, filled the space between them as they stared on the cool, ruptured earth, the weight of it threatening to smother them all.
"Doctor," Barbara placed a cautious hand on the old man's arm. "Bainswick… was he, did he?"
"I'm sorry my dear… he got me out, but there wasn't time. He didn't make it back."
From the sorrowful tone of the Doctor's voice, Ian guessed that somehow the Doctor had known that it was a different man who'd saved him.
"The other," Barbara began, "the copy, he… we lost him in all of…" she threw her hands up around her as if to say, in all this, then hugged herself with them instead. "A conman, a killer, a rapist and a thief… and we let him get away. Still… he gets caught, ten years from now…"
"Bainswick?" Ian frowned, as if having trouble with the description.
Barbara grew quiet, thinking of all the lives that they'd have saved if they'd stopped him, but that would have meant-
"Will he? Will he my dear?" The Doctor pointed a finger upwards and waggled it angrily. "Nothing, I think, nothing, will be the same any more. Nothing!"
XXX
Susan felt her terror draining away. The creature was draining even that emotion away.
As her fear subsided, her mind, or what was left of it, cleared. She stared at the bird, no, the woman holding her down, who had worn her face, who had worn her body, who had done such horrible things, how had killed all those thousands of helpless, infected creatures in the factory, who had killed all of those guards, this woman who was her, but a person she could never imagine being. Staring deeper, she saw all of the woman's many faces, fragments of her past, her knowledge, her history.
And she understood why this woman was waiting, why she hadn't finished her off: the cybermat would not detach until the body was dead.
Which, when you think about it, is different. For different people.
And Susan was a very different person.
And very, very, very cross.
She might not be the first Susan, she might not even be the best Susan, but this was her incarnation, her body and by hell she wasn't going to give it up without a fight.
Susan sneered, then rammed Coal Hill School down Putya's throat: imagined every brick, every desk, every school lunch, every depressed teacher, every bitchy teen, every angry word she threw at this woman who was holding her down. Slapping Putya across the face with Skaro and a thousand Aztec warriors, Susan leapt up and kicked the woman in the stomach, and pressed her foot into her neck, staring down at the look of shock and confusion in the woman's face.
Beneath them both, the mesa faded away.
Susan raised an eyebrow, but her voice was full of sorrow. "Time to die."
And then Putya was gone. Then Susan was gone too.
And in a rattling, rolling escape capsule that was plummeting to Earth, the cybermat flashed a lethal electrical charge across her brain pan and Susan died.
The cybermat detached its tentacles and curled up into a little ball and shut itself off.
XXX
Ian spun around in alarm: it was the sound.
The light atop the Tardis was flashing. The Ship was leaving.
"Quickly!" The Doctor leapt through the closing doors and Ian, grabbing Barbara, raced in quickly behind him, terrified the Doctor would leave them in his haste. Breathless, they stumbled to a stop against the console and watched the rotor groan up and down, juddering and wheezing in protest.
"Who…" Barbara gasped between breaths. "Is… flying…. the… Ship?"
Again, the Doctor didn't answer, flicking switches instead before he started punching buttons. He walked round and round the console, each flick and punch becoming angrier, more violent. Finally, he gave up and watched in silence, sucking a bruised finger, and studying the rotor as it continued its perpetual beat.
So focused on the disgruntled old man, Ian never saw it appear; he just stumbled against it when he took an uncomfortable step backwards.
There was a tinny, clanging sound. And the smell of burnt ozone.
Doctor- he meant to say. But couldn't. Because he'd seen what was inside the capsule. Could see Susan's dead expression, her bloodied neck at an awkward angle.
Ian didn't know what to say.
XXX
Barbara flinched. She'd been leaning against the console, and her hand had itched oddly. She stared at her bare fingers, trying to remember something. There was a soft, muted clanking sound, as if something had fallen into the console. She stared at her hands again, but just couldn't quite-
It was then that she saw Ian trip, saw the capsule sitting impossibly behind him. Saw him gaping through the portal. Saw the Doctor rushing over to it, clamoring at the door, shouting, saw Ian moving to help him, watched them try to pry open the door, tried to open the capsule. Barbara walked slowly over to the burnt and battered shell herself, and gathered her stomach which seemed to be lurching and heaving, and, placing her hands against the still-warm glass she stared inside.
Susan… it was Susan… and she was… was she? Barbara couldn't quite work it out, couldn't quite see… it had looked… it looked as if the girl's skin… were… as if her skin was glowing.
Barbara blinked, and then stared again. No… Susan looked… she looked fine. There were no marks on her neck either. She looked… she looked fine. Perfect.
There was a clank as the door fell onto the floor and the Doctor was pulling his granddaughter out, fretting. Ian looked confused as Susan coughed and sputtered and hugged her grandfather. Barbara just stood there, blinking stupidly as they carried her to her room, to help her to bed.
So much had happened. So much that she didn't understand.
She felt the weariness fall about her like a thick blanket, one stuffed with relief and edged nicely with exhaustion. It felt good. She was home. They were all alive. She could deal with exhaustion. She could burrow deep inside of it and wrap it around her, could embrace it. She knew what to do about exhaustion.
She staggered through the doors of the Ship, hoping desperately that somewhere, somewhere inside, there'd still be a working bath.
XXX
"He doesn't understand, that's all." The voice was Barbara's. She and the Doctor were staring at the scanner. Staring at the peculiar sight: the Earth as seen from space, with multi-colored rings draped elegantly around it lit in purple and amber hues.
"What does Chesteron expect me to do, hmmm?" The Doctor's voice was gruff, irritated. "Go outside and glue all the pieces together? The Moon is gone, my dear. There's nothing I can do." His voice, its helplessness and its disbelief, trailed out through the door to where Susan was eavesdropping.
"But how can it? I mean, the explosion, London… all of it? What about the tides? How can it happen? What about history? My history?"
"Your history? What makes you think it belongs to you? It will adjust, or it won't. I don't know how you expect me to answer your questions. Everything's changed… but everything always changes… as must we…"
Their futile bickering continued, following Susan as she slipped away through the corridors, in drips and barks of syllables, but she wasn't listening. She'd heard Ian coming towards the console room and she wasn't ready to face him, not just yet. She'd seen the looks he'd been giving her, and she wasn't ready for his questions. Wasn't sure how to answer them.
She was not the Susan that he'd feared, this was true at least. That Susan, that Putya had died with Susan's body. Susan had held onto the edge of death for as long as she'd dared before she regenerated, desperately hoping she'd fooled the cybermat, that Putya was really gone.
But in doing so, she'd become a murderer. Something she didn't want to face, didn't want Ian to face. Not until she'd had some time to come to terms with herself, or with this new body that she'd carefully matched to her own.
She was still dizzy with the energy of it, with the rush that comes with rebirth.
She needed time.
And more worrying, more worrying than an Earth with rings, with a new history stretching before it… more worrying than all of that was when she'd gone back to check the capsule, gone to look back inside the metal shell: there was no sign of the cybermat.
It was loose inside the Ship. Somewhere, in an infinite number of corridors, it was lurking.
She stepped quietly through the corridors, hunting, bracing to fight.
To kill.